Night

Night (or nighttime) is the period of time when the sun is below the horizon. The opposite of night is day (or "daytime" to distinguish it from "day" as used for a 24-hour period). The start and end times of night vary based on factors such as season, latitude, longitude and timezone. At any given time, one side of the planet Earth is bathed in light from the Sun (the daytime) and the other side of the Earth is in the shadow caused by the Earth blocking the light of the sun. This shadow is what we call the darkness of night.

Dark the night
Yet is she bright,
For in her dark she brings the mystic star,[...] ~ George Eliot

How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which Vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars, unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light,
And drew behind the cloudy vale of night. ~ Homer

Night comes, world-jewelled, * * *
The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage
War with the lines of Darkness; and the moon,
Pale ghost of Night, comes haunting the cold earth
After the sun's red sea-death—quietless.

I live among the creatures of the night
I haven't got the will to try and fight
Against a new tomorrow, so I guess I'll just believe it
That tomorrow never comes.
A safe night, I'm living in the forest of my dream
I know the night is not as it would seem
I must believe in something, so I'll make myself believe it
That this night will never go.

Dark the Night, with breath all flowers,
And tender broken voice that fills
With ravishment the listening hours,—
Whisperings, wooings,
Liquid ripples, and soft ring-dove cooings
In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills!Dark the night
Yet is she bright,
For in her dark she brings the mystic star,
Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love,
From some unknown afar.

O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,
That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?

It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain.
It is night: only now all the songs of the lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.
An unstilled, an unstillable something is in me; it wants to be heard. A craving for love is in me, which itself speaks the language of love.
[...]
It is night: alas that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And loneliness!
It is night: now my longing breaks out of me like a well – I long to speak.
It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain.
It is night: only now all the songs of the lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.

The uniform darkness, fount of the gods,
The place from which the birds come...
Open to the Duat [Underworld] that is on her northern side
With her rear in the east and her head in the west.

Inscription addressed to the goddess Nut under a representation on the ceiling of the temple of Seti; reported in Rose Hammond, Islands in the Sky: The Four-Dimensional Journey of Odysseus through Space and Time (2013), p. 118.

How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which Vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars, unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

How is night's sable mantle labor'd o'er,
How richly wrought with attributes divine!
What wisdom shines! what love! this midnight pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid
Built with divine ambition!

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains—Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness
I learn'd the language of another world.

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with the sense of the triumphing night,—
Night with train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding.

Now black and deep the Night begins to fall,
A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching Gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies; all beauty void,
Distinction lost, and gay variety
One universal blot: such the fair power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.

When, upon orchard and lane, breaks the white foam of the Spring
When, in extravagant revel, the Dawn, a Bacchante upleaping,
Spills, on the tresses of Night, vintages golden and red
When, as a token at parting, munificent Day for remembrance,
Gives, unto men that forget, Ophirs of fabulous ore.